THE WORDS OF SUBEDAI
An ongoing monologue about the trials and tribulations of life in general, being an avid reader, figure painter, terrain modeller, part time wargamer -with a rather scary fixation for the Mongols- part time rule writer, aspiring writer and photographer, very amateur artist and being a follower of both West Ham United and Sittingbourne FC...ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Painted Plastic Russians

I thought I would share some pics of my latest project, the plastic Medieval Russians. They are based, as are all my chaps now, on 60 x 40 bases from Warbases. All of the standard bearers have had their spear or sword removed, the hand drilled and a piece of brass wire inserted as a standard pole. All standards have been hand painted by yours truly.

A unit of mounted druzhina manufactured by Mars (Pack 72059, Russian Medium Cavalry). There are 12 figures in the box so it works out quite nicely. All of the cavalry have been both pinned and glued to the horses before painting.

This is a unit from the Suzdal smerdy levy (peasants). Made by Mars, they are the Lithuanian-Russian Light Infantry (Pack No 72060), there are enough figures in the pack to make two such units plus the smerdy archers below. I found out after they had all been painted and based that the chap on the far right has a separate shield, (I thought there was something strange about him). Gluing just to the paint is not good so I've decided to leave it off on him but use them on the next unit.

A unit of Novgorod Militia. The standard is from the Republic of Novgorod so is probably more modern than the thirteenth century but I like it and other contemporary flags, apart from religious icons, are difficult to find. Although not too obvious from this angle, it has one of those Russian three bar crosses plus extras on it. These are from the Stelets Medieval Russian Militia (Pack MO48). There are enough to make two such units from the box.

A unit of smerdy archers from Ryazan. There should be a boyar type figure in the middle of the flag but my thinking was that he might have been added at a later date and anyway, as smerdy they wouldn't have had too finer standard, if any. These are from the same Mars pack as the Suzdal smerdy above. The third figure from the right is from the Stelets Medieval Russian Militia pack. These and the cavalry are marketed as being from the first half of the Fifteenth Century but I have used them otherwise it would be boring with only the two Strelets boxes to use for the whole army, especially as there are only 6 cavalry in a box.

So in numbers I have three infantry units -total of 48 figures- and one cavalry unit- total of 12 figures- completed in just over a month of painting for about an hour per day. On the workbench I have another unit of militia, one of smerdy levy and a unit of foot druzhina left to paint -another 54 figures although the druzhina are already half painted. There are 6 cavalry in the Russian Army of Alexander Nevsky box and I will probably use 3 of them as an army command base.

So for an outlay of about £25 I've got the lions share of a complete 1/72 scale Russian Medieval Army of 102 infantry and 12 cavalry. Not bad, eh?

I've decided that another box of the Strelets Medieval Militia, one of the Mars Lithuanian-Russian Light Infantry and a box of Tartar Light Cavalry should be enough to see me through. It would give me a total of 11 infantry units (186 figures) and 2 cavalry units (21 figures). Of course, for that price I could always add to it at a later date.

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Subedai (aka Mick Sayce)

Apparently I'm a grumpy old man who spends too much time on the computer, reading, watching football -especially West Ham United- and painting 'toy' soldiers.(Pearls of Wisdom from the other half).
P.S. Photo of moi was taken by the OH at El Jem, an incredibly atmospheric, ruined Roman amphitheatre in Tunisia.